Heinz Mack - Ohne Titel, Farbchromatik (Untitled, Colour Chromaticism), 2016

Pastel chalk on handmade paper

55 x 66 cm / framed 86 x 96 cm
21 x 25 inch / framed 33 x 37 inch

signed and dated at bottom right: “mack 16”
signed and dated: “mack 16” on the back with direction arrow

– with handmade craftman's frame –

N 9288

Provenance:

Artist´s studio

Exhibitions:

Essen, Galerie Neher, HEINZ MACK ....auf Papier, 2023, außerhalb des Katalog

About the work

The central theme in the work of Heinz Mack, born in 1931 in Lollar in Hessen, is light. In his broad range of work, he circles this subject in different forms and with the most varied artistic media: This includes sculptures of various materials, columns of light and light rotors, as much as it does light reliefs and light cubes. However, in addition to the sculptural works, the painting, drawing, ink and pastel works, as well as the print oeuvre and the photography occupy important positions in his work. This also includes both bibliophile projects and art in the public space: My works […] are objects of light, instruments of light, and an expression of its energy.

In physics, the phenomenon of light is a small, visible part of electromagnetic radiation. This consists of vibrating energy units (quanta) and is transmitted in waves from a light source. It requires a certain period of time to travel from its place of origin to the eye of the beholder. Each wavelength provides its own colour impression. Mack examines these different light and colour phenomena at the artistic level without omitting the physical aspect in the process.

As a co-founder of the ZERO artist group in 1957, he received worldwide attention for the first time with the reduction of his artistic themes to light and colour. In permanent experimentation with various materials and referring to light and movement, he developed an artistic expression of his very own. New design principles and aesthetic maxims characterised this post-war period in Germany, which, after the conquest of the National Socialist dictatorship, also strived to overcome a traditional understanding of art. In bold and experimental ideas like the Sahara-Projekt (Sahara Project) from 1959, Mack hoped for nothing less than to redesign the whole world into a place of freedom through art. Installations of light columns, walls of mirrors, sails, sand reliefs, light reliefs or light cubes, which he arranged into an artificial garden in the desert, followed in the course of the 1960s.

The artist bean to capture light in its various gradations of colour in his works on paper. Important for the impact of colours is their special texturing on the paper, like this work shows through the arrangement into various rectangles, but at the same time also through the internal texture of the individual colour areas. The attention of the beholder is especially captured by the two different central areas, which differ from one another through their varying designs. The pastel-velvety centre areas are framed by areas in various shades of blue and yellow. The artist creates gentle colour transitions at their boundaries. Memories of iridescent manifestations of light are awakened.

Text authored and provided by Dr Andrea Fink, art historian

The art historian, curator and freelance publicist Andrea Fink studied art history, cultural studies and humanities, modern history and philosophy in Bochum and Vienna. Doctorate in 2007 on the work of the Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. As a freelance curator and art consultant, her clients include, among others, the Kunstverein (art association) Ahlen, Kunstverein Soest, Wella Museum, Museum am Ostwall Dortmund, ThyssenKrupp AG, Kulturstiftung Ruhr, Osthaus Museum Hagen, Franz Haniel GmbH, Kunsthalle Krems, Austria.

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Heinz Mack, Untitled, Colour Chromaticism, 2016, 55 x 66 cm / framed 86 x 96 cm, N 9288
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